Dear Sirius
by Hel-Lokisdotter
Summary: After Sirius fell through the veil, Remus sits down to write him a letter. One-shot, thought-tracking. Written quite a while ago. Slight puppyshipping, if you squint.


Sirius,  
I went home. To Yorkshire. Do you remember Yorkshire, when we were kids? You came all the time, and we'd muck around in the fields and on the bridge by my house. I went there today. It seemed so… empty, without you there with me. I know we only met up a week or so ago, but it seems like months. As Romeo put it, 'Ah, me! Sad hours seem long!' (I know you've never been much of a one for Muggle literature, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist)  
Anyway, I went down there for an evening walk, just so I could think for a bit. The moon is nearly full, of course, but for once it didn't seem to matter. It wasn't evil, like it usually is, it was just… there. Do you know what I mean? No, I don't suppose you do – you're Sirius. But it was hanging there, and it was just a big silver thing in the sky, that I could see by. And it didn't matter whether it was full or half or new, because it was just a thing.  
Like the curtain was just a thing. A thing that took everything away from me, and it wasn't the curtain that I hated. It was myself, for not stopping it – for not stopping all of it. For not saving you. For not saving James. For not saving Lily. Even for not saving Peter.  
I know what you're thinking, Sirius. Peter was a traitor – he didn't deserve to be saved. Perhaps you're right. You always were. But he was one of us before he was one of them, Sirius.  
Still, none of those things are why I hated myself the most. I hated myself for not crying… not at James and Lily's funeral, not when we thought Peter had died, not even when I saw you fall again, and again, and again, in my nightmares.  
I sat down with my back against that little alcove in the bridge where we used to sit (I can't fit in there any more; it was a lifetime ago), and I tried for hours to make myself cry for you. The tears wouldn't come, Sirius. But it must have been at least eleven when I looked up again.  
It was cloudy, but the stars were as bright as I've ever seen them. Perhaps it was just exhaustion, but it seemed almost like part of the sky was hanging over my head where there was a gap in the clouds, and I wished with every part of me (no, not that part, Sirius!) that it would fall on me and crush me. Stupid, I know. It isn't as if anything would have come of it. Nonetheless, that's what I wished.  
And I looked for the Dog Star, and it wasn't there. There was an emptiness inside of me that grew with every minute I searched the laughing stars.  
And still the tears weren't coming.  
So I probed at them, like pulling at a loose tooth. I thought, you're gone.  
Nothing.  
I thought, you're never coming back.  
Nothing.  
I thought, this is it, then. This is all that is left of the Marauders. Just bookish old Moony, alone in the dark.  
I felt tears then, Sirius, and no doubt you'll think I'm horribly selfish for it – I know I do. But I've thought about it, and I'm pretty sure that I only needed the right prompt, because seconds later I was crouched there, my coat clutched round me and my eyes closed, curled up in a ball of misery and sobbing like a child.  
I thought I heard your voice, and it was when we first met – both of us children, and both of us afraid, in our way. But then it wasn't any more; you sounded fifteen or sixteen, like you were calming me after one of my bad moons, and then you were twenty, twenty-five, thirty…  
And then you were gone.  
You must think I'm mad, Sirius. Reading that again, I'm not so sure I'm not. You must be laughing at me, wherever you are. But that was what I heard.  
And after you had gone, or I thought you had, I just crouched there for I don't know how long: I had no way of telling the time. And then I thought, they'll be wondering where I am, and I stood up and walked away from the bridge, wishing I hadn't come.  
I was most of the way home when a patch of bright air caught my eye. I turned to look for a moment. And there he was. The Dog Star, snapping at the heels of Orion.  
Sirius, I know it sounds stupid, but I would have stabbed myself with a hundred knives and put twenty silver bullets through my skull if it would have let me switch that Sirius for you.  
And now it's time, and past it, that I confessed something to you.  
I loved you, Sirius. I know it sounds gay, but I loved you.  
Not like I love my other friends. Not like I love Harry. Certainly not how I love Dora!  
But I loved you, because you were the last thread holding me to the person I used to be, and now that thread, too, has broken, and I'm falling into the abyss.  
I know what you'd say if you were here, Sirius – why don't I just talk straight? Well, I can't, because I can't think straight. And I don't want to. If you read this, I hope, it'll let you know what I mean.  
I loved you, because you were a Marauder. And now the Marauders are all dead, all but the quiet bookworm Remus – and I'm fairly sure he died with you. As I write this letter, there is a silver paperknife on the table in front of me. Every now and then, I touch it; it burns, of course, and the burning tells me I'm alive. I want to take this knife and stab it through my heart, but, Sirius, I can't. I'm too afraid. And that's the most hateful thing of all.  
I'm sorry, Sirius. I've betrayed the Marauders as much as Peter did.  
Marauders should stick together.  
I hope you'll understand.

Remus.

P.S. I was going to write this letter to Padfoot. Mark it with the little moon I used to use on notes, do you remember? But that Padfoot and that Moony are dead. You are just Sirius. And I am, cowardly and stupid, just Remus.  
Still, it seems odd to sign off a letter to you without it.  
Everything's odd, now that you're gone.


End file.
